Reality

12/07/2010

I'm not motivated at all today, nor am I motivated on most other days. This is such good news! Having no motivation tells me that I have no fear. No fears of losing something that I have and no fear of not getting something that I want. I just do things anyway but without anxiety, tension and fear. Goals are much like this as well. When I set goals, I get motivated and when I am motivated to reach those goals, I have set myself up to fear not reaching those goals. We have all put ourselves in that position and we have all felt the anxiety of letting ourselves down. I say let go of the goals, let go of motivation and learn to enjoy the process of doing or being for the sake of it.

09/01/2010

Sometimes when we think we are teaching, it is helpful to look closer at our motivations. Are we teaching or are we punishing? When you can answer that question honestly, you are ready to teach others.

07/09/2010

Most of us experience love and hate as being opposite of one another yet related by the very fact that we experience the two feelings as opposing. They are one in my experience. I love because I have felt hate at some time or another. I wouldn't know what love was without hate but at some point I realized that I have never truly hated anything. When I think that I hate that my husband may hand me divorce papers at any moment, it's only because I love him so much. It is at that moment that I have the opportunity to drop the feeling of hate or dislike for our circumstances that I am able to fully internalize the love and meet him where he is in that moment - divorce or not. I am free to love us as we are and share that love with my family. I love that about myself! There is absolutely nothing to hate when I love me so completely. Loving myself is the only way I have experienced being able to love him too - as he is. This is what allows me to cover his sleeping body at night when I realize I am cold. I awaken and think "I am cold", and I look over at him and notice that he looks cold too. I cover him with a blanket and then myself and we sleep. It's beautiful.

09/04/2009

Why do we tend to believe that we need to change anything about our
lives? The clip below is from one of several articles assigned to choose from
for an assignment in the Holistic Health class I enrolled in this
semester. It is also one of several articles that I affectionately categorize as "The Mental Mainstream Mess".

"WRITE DOWN ACTIVITIES THAT YOU ENJOY.Take some time to make this list. Think about what you do in your spare time or what you do when you are on vacation. Try to write down activities that are unrelated to the lifestyle change that you are making. For instance, if you ‘re trying to limit sweets in your diet, eating your favorite food is not an appropriate reward-unless you feel that you can limit yourself to a reasonable portion."via www.ehow.com

My choices in diet and exercise have nothing to do with my health, I used to believe that I consumed wheatgrass and hemp smoothies because I should consume a healthier diet. This is both true for me and not true. What I mean to say is that I only know that I should drink these when I do, but I don't do it to get "health" but rather don't have a reason at all. I just drink hemp and whaetgrass smoothies. The thought comes to drink the green liquid and I do or I don't and when I don't, I shouldn't. I don't believe you need to eat what I eat because "my" way is the healthiest way nor do I believe that anyone should eat better than they do or exercise more than they do. Why? It's not possible! Can you not eat the cake that you ate yesterday? If you ate an entire cake last night and are now thinking that you shouldn't have, where are you? In the past, feeling guilty for something that is no longer happening. Are you eating cake right now? If you are feeling guilty, then you are still eating cake! Is it possible to eat less cake than you did? Nope! If you are thinking that you shouldn't eat another entire cake tonight, you are in the future. You will only know whether or not you should or shouldn't eat the cake when you either do or do not eat the cake.

The pressure to change the unchangeable comes from nothing more than a thought - your thought. So, if you are presented with a cake tonight eat it, don't eat it. It makes no difference unless you think it does. I say, do not limit yourself. Who decides what is a reasonable portion size for you is you? When you say "I ate too many calories today", ask yourself "too many calories for who"? It couldn't have been too many for you since you ate that many calories! Realize that you always have and always will eat exactly what is right for you whether you "think" so or not.... cake is never bad, your thoughts about cake are bad. Love your cake and you can love yourself!

09/01/2009

While browsing Facebook yesterday, I happened across a quote a dear friend had posted as her status. The quote was from the song "Send it On" performed by Miley Cyrus, Demi Lovato, The Jonas Brothers and Selena Gomez and read "A Word is Just a Word Until You Mean What You Say and Love Isn't Love 'Till You Give it Away". For today, I want to address the first part of the quote as it struck me as odd initially, generated critical analysis, and finally provided fun blogging material!

After pondering these lyrics for a moment, I immediately noticed why so many of us walk around hurt and confused. Since when is a word anything other than a word whether you mean what you say or not? If your words have meaning and you tell these words to another, does the other person understand what you mean? Are they supposed to understand? If they say they understand, how can you be sure that they understand what you want them to understand? All good questions and all are irrelevant so no need to drive yourself mad trying to figure it out. What does matter is that you know what you mean, right? And I would say it's safe to assume most of us feel pretty secure that we do, in fact, we are sure that we know what we mean - especially on many of the truly trivial topics that we spend so much time talking about. For example, how many of you have said to someone "if you don't start respecting me, I'm gonna leave" (and then don't)? How about, "If I had more money I could finally start my dream business", "I should exercise more" (while you are parked in front of the TV eagerly awaiting the start of the season two Nip Tuck marathon instead of running in one), or my favorite, "he/she should try to be more understanding".

Here are a couple of explanations that are the real reality of some of the above mentioned situations...

When you threaten someone who you feel doesn't respect you, that you are going to leave and then don't leave, who is disrespecting you? All the while you are sure that the other person is doing the disrespecting, and while this may be true the first time, you are the only person disrespecting you when you don't follow through with your words that are so full of meaning the second time, third time, etc...

"S/He should be more understanding." Maybe, maybe not. Can you understand something that you don't understand? Me either. You can try and try to make somebody understand you and they won't until they do. How understanding are you? Do you understand that they don't understand? Who should be more understanding when you believe someone else should understand? I will cease further explanation on this one. You either understand or you don't and it has nothing to do with my understanding.

Why is money necessary to start your dream business? This one appears simple enough right? Let's say that your dream is to open a restaurant, for 20 years this has been your dream but just when you had the time to start, the economy went kaput and you are no longer eligible for the loan you need to start the life you have fantasized about for all of those years. You just can't catch a break but if you had money to open, everything would finally be right for you and you could relax.

Why do you believe that owning a business at all is what you need or even want? What meaning do you attach to owning a business and why is your life any less fulfilling without it? I'd skip the attachment to the thought "I need money to start a business", think of other options that might provide fulfillment now and live the dream today. Why not start a business cleaning up dog shit from the bottom of shoes for people at the dog park? It's possible you will enjoy it more than owning a five star restaurant even though you "think" you could never be happy with something related to shit covered shoes. Stop thinking! You will only know that your dream of owning a business is actually going to satisfy your desires when you own the business. It's not possible to be a happy restaurant owner in the future - there is no future! All there is is now!

How do you feel when you think you should exercise more and then drive to the mailbox at the end of the driveway to get the latest pizza coupons because you don't like to break a sweat? Maybe you shouldn't exercise more. This makes too much sense to make sense. It is difficult to be happy when you always abuse yourself with your thoughts. Ask yourself "Should I be doing anything that I'm not doing?". If you say yes, ask yourself "Is it possible to be doing something that I'm not doing?". If you say yes, ask someone else to check you in to the nearest mental hospital. That is where the other people hang who haven't been told this little secret either. When we believe anything should be different than it is, we are crazy - literally insane! How can anything be different than it is? Is refusing to get comfortable with a situation or person because you disagree with something about what is happening helpful in any way? I have found comfort in the discomfort by not clinging to the belief that if I don't like it, it should be different. I still may not like it, but so what. I shouldn't like things when I don't and I don't need anything to change if it doesn't. If it does change, I needed it to change and that is how I know what should be happening in a given moment.

So get out the rubber gloves and clean the shit off your perceptual
window while you count the ways that you have gratitude for not getting
what you want because what you have is so much better - how could the
stuff of dreams be better than reality? How can something imaginary be
better than what is real? Ask yourself, how do I treat myself and my loved ones
when I think I need something to be different than what I have here and now? How do you feel when your loved ones think they need
something else and you are sitting there trying to be supportive of
their dream and not living yours?

If these words mean nothing to you, no meaning, is in itself, a meaning that you attach to the words. I don't write with the expectation that others should understand what my words mean to me. Words have meaning, words don't have meaning - who cares. It's what you do that cultivates understanding.